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Paul lies on his back on John’s bed, naked as the day he was born, and wonders how the hell it took them so long to get to this point. How different everything could have been if they had been just a bit more honest when this whole thing between them had started, back when they had both just been two teenaged teddy boys in Liverpool.
It’s a bit different now, almost twenty years later; they both have their own lives, families and careers, separate from each other. The concept of Lennon-McCartney has been obsolete for the better part of a decade.
He sighs.
“What’re you thinkin’ about?” John asks, lazily rolling onto his side to face him. His glasses are sitting on the bedside table; he looks much gentler without them, the tall emotional walls separating the real John — the softer, sensitive side of him — from his public persona having come down with them.
“Nothing, nothing…” he mumbles dismissively and sits up straighter on the bed. He makes sure to keep the duvet covering his private parts in place — daft, considering what they’ve just done.
It’s quiet for a beat.
“Macca?” John asks, a soft grin on his lips, the kind that Paul remembers from Liverpool, the kind that he’d wear on his face after getting Paul to do something naughty with him — skip school, nick some records from the music shop, whatever. “Was I your first?”
He pauses, not sure how to answer, before deciding to not take the question seriously, a tiny grin curling onto his lips.
“No,” he replies, leaning back against the headboard. “I’ve got four kids, y’know. Wasn’t the stork that brought them.”
John rolls his eyes, the smile never fading from his face, and nudges at his side.
“You know what I meant, smartarse,” he says before overarticulating the next words. “Was I the first man you slept with?”
Paul sighs, the smile on his lips turning coy as he looks down. “Not that either.”
This time the smile on John’s face is replaced with a look of surprise. But who…?
“Robert Fraser,” he continues before John can even get the chance to ask. “In ‘66, I think. Went to Paris with him and… yeah.”
“Ah.” John gives him a curt nod in response. It’s not as if people hadn’t been talking during those times — especially with Fraser being a known queer — so in a way, it’s nice to have the rumours confirmed. On the other hand, the jealous little creature inside him is absolutely seething from the information.
It’s not like Robert had been the first person to take Paul to Paris. No, that would’ve been John, years earlier. And if he had just been a little braver back then, he could have been another first.
“What about you, then?” Paul asks, interrupting his thoughts. “Was I your first?”
He pauses, trying to shake the thought of Paul and Groovy Bob out of his mind. “Uh… no.”
“No?” Paul repeats, almost as if having expected the answer. He decides to test the ice, voice soft. “Brian?”
John shakes his head, looking down. A small, melancholic huff of laughter escapes his lips. “Stu.”
“Oh?” Paul raises his eyebrows, and John can see his body tense up at the mention of that name. It’s a bit of a sore subject for the both of them, really.
“Yeah,” he says quietly, drawing little shapes on the bedsheets with his finger. “Just this one time in Hamburg, y’know.”
He tries to soften the blow a little, remembering the whole rivalry that had taken place between Paul and Stu, all for his attention. Back then it had felt nice, being vied for like that, but the reality of how things ended up has soured the memory.
Paul nods. It does make it a little more bearable, knowing that it was never anything too serious between John and Stu, but he can’t help but feel a little disappointed. It could’ve been him with John in Hamburg, it should’ve been him. A part of him wants to ask why John hadn’t chosen him, but he decides against it.
Another beat of silence. Then, John opens his mouth, the words flowing out of his mouth awkwardly, barely as a coherent sentence.
“But I mean, me and Eppy… we did… I mean, when we were in Spain… y’know.”
Of course Paul knows. How could he not, with the whole incident at his 21st birthday party, John lashing out and beating Bob Wooler to a pulp over a bloody joke about his and Brian’s holiday to Barcelona. That had been all the confirmation he needed to know that something was up — and to scare him into selfishly thinking that Brian was going to steal John’s attention away from him. Fortunately — at least for him — that fear had never come into fruition.
“I see,” he mumbles. The conversation has quickly become awkward. He tries to fix it. “You’ve had multiple lads before me, then.”
The attempt at lightening up the mood seems to work. John grins, looking back up at him.
“You calling me a slut, Macca?” he asks playfully, poking at Paul’s side with his finger.
“No, no, not at all,” he chuckles and swats John’s hand away. “Would make me quite the hypocrite, y’know.”
“Oh?”
“Mhm,” Paul nods, unable to not feel a bit smug. “I’m just as popular with the blokes as I am with the girls, y’know.”
“Is that so, huh…” John hums, sitting up on the bed. “Care to name one of these blokes?”
“Mal, for one.”
John lets out a disbelieving huff of laughter. “You’re lying.”
“Am not,” Paul says with a small grin on his lips before continuing. He seems almost proud of the fact that John apparently hadn’t had a clue. “Did it with him a few times, too.”
“Slag,” John smiles, giving him a light, playful shove. “Who else?”
“Denny Laine,” he reveals, all the coyness from earlier gone.
“Harry Nilsson,” John answers just as giddily, the look on his face almost challenging Paul to one-up him.
“Donovan.”
“David Bowie.”
“George Martin.”
“Oh, now I know you’re lying,” John exclaims, barely able to contain his laughter. The scene is strangely reminiscent of the old days, playfully ribbing on each other and then proceeding to giggle like schoolgirls about it. Puppy love, it had been — both dying to be around each other at every waking hour of the day but too shy to express those feelings in any meaningful way, in a way that could have led to something more.
Before Paul can answer, John quickly straddles him on the bed, drawing a surprised moan from his lips. He leans down almost close enough to kiss, but not quite.
“Slept with the producer, huh, Paulie?” he murmurs quietly against his lips.
Paul swallows, tries to keep his composure and not let the feeling of John’s naked body on top of him have too big of an effect on him. “Yeah,” he says breathily, the quiet chuckle that leaves his mouth tickling against John’s lips. “There was— There was even a time when he—”
John doesn’t want to hear any more. He silences Paul with a firm kiss on the lips to which the other man melts instantly, plush lips moving against his, a small, barely-there moan slipping into his mouth.
“That’s enough of that,” he mutters softly against Paul’s lips when he finds it in himself to pull back only to continue the line of kisses down his neck.
“Ah— Your fault for asking…” Paul mumbles back, a hand coming up to rest on his head, playing with the auburn locks of hair.
“Sure,” John smiles as he moves to pepper Paul’s jawline with kisses, breathing in his smell before eventually settling to rest his head in the crook of Paul’s neck and staying there. They stay like that for a while, both still recovering from their earlier lovemaking — twenty years ago, they’d both be way past their refractory periods at this point, but that too had changed over the years. A lot of things had.
“Y’know,” John says after a moment, voice barely louder than a whisper. “you’re the best I’ve had. By far.”
Paul smiles. “You too.”
John smiles back. Despite the years, there’s still a hint of that teenaged boy in the man he’s looking at: the way his eyes light up whenever John compliments him, the way his dark brown hair sticks to his forehead with sweat — although this time it’s not from playing multiple hour long gigs at seedy Hamburg clubs, but from a completely other reason, one that John at his current age is much more fond of. Nevertheless, there’s also something different about the Paul he’s looking at right now, not just agewise; there’s a sort of vulnerability that he hadn’t yet seen twenty years ago, back when they had both felt like they needed to prove themselves to each other, whatever that meant. There’s nothing they need to prove to each other anymore, all’s been said and done, for better and for worse.
John wraps his arms around Paul and pulls the man closer to himself, reveling in the feeling of his own body pressed tight against Paul’s. The jealousy he was feeling earlier has faded; after all, even with all of the other men — and women — they’ve both been with, Paul’s ended up right here, next to him in his bed. Just like it should be, the thought echoes through his mind as he lets out a quiet sigh, nose buried in sweaty locks of raven hair.
After a while, Paul rolls away from John’s arms and rolls them both over so that he’s on top, arse pressed against John’s crotch. A surprised gasp slips through John’s lips, his cock slowly beginning to react to the sensation. Before he can say anything, however, Paul silences him with a quick kiss.
“Ready for round two?” he suggests, grinning against John’s lips. The answer is positive — of course it is, they have a lot of catching up to do to make up for all the wasted years, after all.